Afghan Vice President Hints That Turmoil Awaits if He Is Not Respected

KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghanistan’s volatile first vice president, Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, has unleashed a tirade in which he appeared to issue a veiled threat that he might turn his wrath against his own government if disrespect of him and his Uzbek constituency continued.

General Dostum’s term as vice president had already been marked by emotional outbursts, including vowing that he and his Uzbek militia fighters would lead the northern war against the Taliban if the government would not.

At a news conference on Monday at his personal palace in northern Afghanistan, General Dostum accused President Ashraf Ghani and the government’s chief executive, Abdullah Abdullah, of favoring the ethnic groups they are identified with — Mr. Ghani is Pashtun, and Mr. Abdullah is a leader of Tajik political groups — and using their power to suppress other ethnicities. And he complained that he was treated as “the enemy” rather than a member of the government.

“The old politics, the failed politics to keep us marginalized and just a formality — they are not aware, but we have passed those tests in the past,” General Dostum said. “I don’t need a coup d’état or anything. But if the day comes, I will gather my people, I will unburden my heart to them. And after that. …” he trailed off.

Those remarks and others he made were widely seen here as injecting the idea of ethnic tensions into an already roiling political crisis. And coming from General Dostum, whose militia was a major party in the civil war that all but destroyed Afghanistan in the 1980s and ’90s, the statements were particularly troubling.

Previously, Mr. Ghani’s aides had moved both publicly and privately to project unity and smooth things over after General Dostum’s outbursts. But his remarks on Tuesday led the president’s office to publicly respond.

Mr. Ghani’s office, in a statement, expressed regret at the general’s remarks, which it said were untimely as the Afghan forces were fighting difficult battles across the country. And buried deep in the office’s statement was a subtle threat of its own: General Dostum’s militia forces could come under investigation for accusations of crimes during an operation in Faryab Province.

“The government deems itself responsible to investigate on the recent complaints of our compatriots who were mistreated by the Taliban and other forces involved in the fighting,” the statement said.

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Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum in 2013. He has accused the president and the government’s chief executive of favoring their own ethnic groups.CreditS. Sabawoon/European Pressphoto Agency

General Dostum had recently returned from Faryab after his third operation to push back the Taliban there over the past two years. He was said to be furious at the local security officials, as well as the leadership in Kabul, for what his aides said was lack of assistance to his personal militias fighting the front-line battles.

His news conference on Monday seemed choreographed to show not only frustration, but also potential force: his elite guard crowded around him, and he was dressed in military fatigues and aviator sunglasses.

General Dostum, who rose from modest militia background to champion the cause of the oppressed Uzbek minority, has a history of shifting alliances and turning his back on governments he has supported. He and his fighters abandoned the Communist regime, and their switching sides to support C.I.A.-backed guerrillas was seen as critical to the fall of Najibullah’s government in the early 1990s.

General Dostum even referred to Najibullah’s fall in his news conference. He said Mr. Ghani and his coalition partner Mr. Abdullah were sending incompetent security commanders to the north to keep it weak so it could not rise again and overthrow the government, as it had before.

At another point, he seemed to be directly addressing the United States and its NATO allies, saying, “It’s disintegrating here — another bomb might explode here, they should be wise.”

Much of General Dostum’s anger was directed at the leaders of the security forces, who he said were incompetent and shaped decisions on political considerations rather than military ones. He said that the politicization of the security forces, which he called “treason,” and rampant corruption in which positions at the Ministry of Interior were being sold, were affecting the morale of the soldiers and could lead to the forces’ disintegration. Already, the Afghan forces are suffering record casualties as they have struggled to hold onto territory.

“You send the soldiers to the enemy’s mouth and leadership and management is nonexistent,” General Dostum said. “If the president does not end the old, unsuccessful politics, we will lose these soldiers. They will surrender, they will lose their weapons.”

He reserved his sharpest words for President Ghani’s inner circle. Mr. Ghani’s national security adviser, his chief of staff, and particularly his intelligence chief, Mohammad Masoom Stanekzai, had a tight monopoly over decision-making, he said. He accused Mr. Stanekzai of having sympathies with the Taliban.

“If they say milk is black, the president will accept that milk is black,” Mr. Dostum said. “They have no place among the people — Stanekzai is known as a Taliban, and when I see his actions, I am also concerned.”

“These kinds of people — I have blown them up, both politically and militarily,” the general said at the end of the news conference, taking his cap off. “Don’t touch the hornet’s nest, as they say.”

Jawad Sukhanyar and Fahim Abed contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A10 of the New York edition with the headline: Vice President Hints of Turmoil in Afghanistan if He Is Not Given Respect. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe